


Physical Affection

by petersnotkingyet



Category: The Dukes of Hazzard (TV)
Genre: Attempted Sexual Assault, Canonical Character Death, Holding Hands, Mentions of Pedophilia, Mentions of Rape, Minor Character Death, Platonic Affection, Protective!Luke, could be read as Bo/Luke, nongraphic, sexual assault on a minor, whump!bo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-16
Updated: 2015-02-16
Packaged: 2018-03-13 04:57:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3368660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/petersnotkingyet/pseuds/petersnotkingyet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Holding hands has gotten Bo and Luke through deaths, bullies, pedophiles, and jail.  They're not about to stop for some girl.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Physical Affection

Bo was only three when their parents died. He was too young to really understand what was going on, but Luke was seven and he knew better. Bo cried a lot and sometimes got this lost, confused look on his face. He’d always been so dang cute with his big blue eyes and blond curls, so everyone hated to see him upset. Uncle Jesse would pull his youngest nephew up into his lap and hold him, old ladies at church would smile and slip him bits of candy, and even Daisy could sometimes be convinces to coddle her baby cousin a little. However, Lucas K. Duke took the prize.

He never got mad when Bo crawled into his bed in the middle of the night and pressed his snotty face against Luke’s tee shirt. If Bo decided he didn’t like green beans or broccoli or collard greens, then Luke would make them disappear off his plate when Uncle Jesse wasn’t looking. The oldest Duke boy had found that physical contact was the best way to keep his baby cousin cheery. This often came in the form of holding hands.

All the old ladies at church would coo at how cute it was to see Luke holding his baby cousin’s hand in the church pew. Shop owners were always grateful that he could keep the mischievous toddler reined in when they were picking up groceries. Uncle Jesse never had to worry about Bo wondering off, because Luke always had him by the hand. Luke’s favorite time was when he and Daisy would walk home from school and find Bo waiting in the drive way. He’d tear down the path with a grin, take Luke by the hand, and babble to them about “helping” Uncle Jesse all day.

It got a little more complicated when Bo started going to school. Some of the other kids liked to tease when they saw the cousins holding hands on their way to school or during recess, which never bothered Luke until Bo cried and told him that a boy in his class was saying that Bo’s parents left him because he was a dumb baby. Luke shoved the bully around a little, and no one ever made fun of them again.

Bo got older and wilder, and they were holding hands less by the time he was in junior high school. They held hands or shared beds more than most boy cousins, but less than they had previously. Luke wasn’t too bothered by the decline. Holding hands had started out as a way of keeping Bo feeling calm and secure, and it was reassuring to know his baby cousin would be alright if Luke wasn’t around. Still, holding hands was nice when it did happen. Luke liked to know he was needed.

The youngest Duke went missing for six hours when he was eleven. Luke was in high school and Daisy was in her first year of cheerleading, so they both stayed permanently busy. Most days, Bo would walk across the street to the high school to walk home with his cousins, but sometimes he’d go home on his own if they both had plans. Bo was growing up, it was Hazzard, and he’d been walking the same path since he was five years old. It never occurred to any of the Dukes that something could happen.

One day Daisy had cheer practice and Luke had agreed to help out a classmate with some math they were having trouble with. Luke got home about an hour later than usual, dropping his school bag inside before going out to help Uncle Jesse in the barn.

“Where’s Bo?” Jesse asked as his oldest charge approached.

“Ain’t he with you?” Luke responded, cocking an eyebrow. It wasn’t like Bo to slack off when he knew how busy everyone was. Uncle Jesse shook his head, and Luke’s stomach dropped.

“He didn’t show up around the usual time, so I figured he was gonna wait around the school to walk home with you,” Jesse said.

“No, sir,” Luke said. “He’s done that a time or two, but I told him this was going to take a while. He said he was just going head on home like usual.”

Jesse set his hammer down and withdrew the keys to his truck from his pocket. “Go start the truck,” he ordered his oldest. “I’ll go call the high school and tell them Daisy needs to come on home so she can be here if Bo shows up while we’re gone. Then me and you are gonna go find that dang cousin of yours.”

Once it’d been verified that someone would be personally driving Daisy home, Jesse and Luke took off towards town. They drove slowly along the path Bo, Luke, and Daisy typically took to and from school, but there was no sign of Bo. At the middle school, they spoke to one of the few teachers who were still there. She said she’d seen Bo leave at the end of the day, but that was it.

“Uncle Jesse,” Luke said as they began driving along the path for the second time, “I’ve got a real bad feeling. I think we need to radio the sheriff.”

“I reckon you’re right,” Jesse agreed. Rosco was an idiot, but he was a good man and he had resources and manpower that the Dukes didn’t.

Once the sheriff was on his way, they CBed Daisy to give her an update. She started to cry as soon as they said that Bo was yet to be found, but Luke reassured her that she needed to stay calm and stay at the farm in case the youngest Duke showed up on his own. They could hear her sniffling as she threatened to wear Bo out if it turned out he’d been off messing around.

By the time Rosco arrived, Bo had been missing for nearly two hours. Jesse and Luke gave Rosco the rundown quickly; there wasn’t much to tell. Bo was supposed to walk home from school by himself. Somebody saw him leave the school, but he never got home. Two hours wasn’t really that long for an eleven year old to be missing, but Rosco knew the Dukes and agreed that something felt off about the whole situation.

Uncle Jesse and the Sheriff drove along all the routes Bo could have possibly taken home while Luke and Cooter—who showed up as soon as he heard on the CB that the youngest Duke was unaccounted for—went door-to-door asking if anyone had seen Bo. Somewhere between the last couple of shops on the path and the few houses in town, people had stopped spotting a cheery blond preteen.

“Goddamnit,” Luke cursed, sitting down on the steps of yet another building where no one had seen his cousin. “I should have walked him home. If I’d just walked him home then-”

“Lukas K. Dukas, you know Uncle Jesse would tan your hide if he heard you saying the Lord’s name in vain like that,” Cooter responded, bumping Luke’s shin with a grimy boot.

“What if some pervert has him, Cooter?” Luke said. “He’s just eleven, plus he’s so dang scrawny and he’s never even been in a fight that I wasn’t there to back him up in. If some big fella came after him-”

“You’re not helping Bo with any “what if”s,” Cooter said. For a guy who stayed in high school until he was 20 and still didn’t graduate, Cooter could be pretty smart. “Now get up so we can go CB Uncle Jesse and Rosco and let them know no one saw him between the shops and the houses. Half the town is out looking for him. We’ll find your cousin.”

Another two hours passed, and that promise was yet to be fulfilled. There was nowhere left to look in town, and Bo would have heard that they were looking for him by now if he was just off goofing around. They’d even called Tri-County General to see if any young blond John Does had been brought in. Rosco began getting groups together to search the woods, and Luke, Cooter, majority of the sheriff’s department, and half the high school were among the first volunteers. Jesse, Daisy, and some of the others stayed in town keep looking there.

“Bo! Bo Duke!” Luke yelled into the trees. They’d been at it for over an hour, and he was begging to go hoarse, but they couldn’t stop. The sun had gone down, and the temperature was starting to drop. “Come on, cuz!”

“Beauregard Duke!” Cooter hollered. “You better come on out, kiddo! I’m yelling your full name so loud half of Hazzard County knows it by now!”

They searched by flashlights for another hour before one of the deputies in their group held up his walkie-talkie and called out that Bo had been found. Luke’s legs went out from underneath him, and Cooter catching him by the shoulder was the only thing that kept the fifteen year old from hitting the ground.

“Is he okay?” Luke demanded of the deputy.

“They said he’s pretty banged up and he doesn’t remember anything between leaving school and waking up in the woods about an hour ago,” the deputy answered. “They’re taking him to Tri-County, and your Uncle Jesse is right behind them. Let’s get out of the woods, and I’ll drive you there myself.”

“Who found him?” Luke asked as they made their way to the tree line.

“Enos Strate of all people,” the deputy said. Enos was a lanky, awkward boy in Luke’s grade at school. He was kind-hearted, but a little dim. Luke had never been more grateful for him.

“Luke, there’s something you ought to know,” the deputy said while they were in the car. The ride to Tri-County had been nearly silent until this point. Cooter had gone to pick Daisy up from where she’d been stranded at the farm, and Luke was too anxious to make conversation. “Enos said that when he found Bo, he said that he’d woken up out of his clothes. His shirt and britches were sitting pretty close by, but his underwear wasn’t there. They think…”

“Stop,” Luke interrupted. “I don’t want to hear it from you. I just-” Luke broke off, and the deputy nodded in understanding.

“There’s no sense in worrying about it until you hear from the doctors,” the man said. “I’ll get you there as quick as I can.”

Uncle Jesse was in a private waiting room when the deputy dropped Luke off. “They’re checking him over now,” he said to his nephew. “Enos found him in the woods and said Bo told him he woke up bare. They had to put some stitches in his head and he’s got a concussion, but they said he should be alright. They just to see if…”

Luke nodded, swallowing hard. “The deputy told me about the clothes on the way here. Cooter’s gone to get Daisy and bring her over.”

They lapsed into silence as they waited for the doctor. About fifteen minutes went by before a doctor brought them into Bo’s room. “There’s no evidence of sexual assault,” the doctor said, and Luke’s chest heaved with relief. Without even thinking about it, he grabbed his cousin’s hand and clung to it. “Molestation is still a possibility, but we don’t have to worry about sexually transmitted diseases. Beauregard-”

“Bo,” Luke interrupted. “Nobody calls him Beauregard. He likes Bo better.”

“Sometimes when I’m in trouble,” Bo added. He sounded remarkable okay for someone who was missing five hours of memory and his underwear. “Only if it’s a lot of trouble though.”

“Bo may recover the memories, but there’s no way of knowing for sure what happened unless he does,” the doctor continued. “Going from his injuries, I would say that someone took him into the woods and removed his clothes. Bo fought back, and he got knocked out. The person probably got scared and ran off.”

The tips of Bo’s ears were red, and he was staring down at the edge of the hospital bed. Luke squeezed his hand a little tighter. “Not before they folded my clothes. My jacket, shirt, and jeans were folded up with my belt and boots next to them.” The eleven year old glanced up apprehensively. “I… What’d they want with my underwear?”

“Sometimes pedophiles like to take souvenirs,” the doctor said, looking a little awkward at having to explain the situation to a young boy. “Listen, son. There are sick people out there. Even if you don’t get the memories back, look at your hands. It’s obvious that you fought back.” His knuckles were bruised and scratched, and there were rings of bruises across his wrists like someone had gripped them too tight. “They knocked you out, but it could have been much worse.”

The preteen stayed in the hospital for two nights before he was released. He never remembered more than a few glimpses of the woods and hitting someone, but the event still triggered a lot more nights in Luke’s bed and a lot more hand holding. Rosco got an anonymous tip about Mr. Warner, Bo’s fifth grade gym teacher, a week after the incident, and it didn’t take much to get a conviction after Bo’s underwear was found in the man’s truck.

Luke was expecting at least a few people to be jackasses to his cousins. Not a lot of boys get lured into the woods and bad-touched by men, and kids could be cruel. Surprisingly, no one gave Bo any grief over the event or the amount of clinging he did to his cousin afterwards. Luke wasn’t sure if it was them genuinely being good people or if they were just afraid of the oldest Duke boy, but he wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. Despite the new watchfulness that Hazzard’s residents displayed over the young people, Bo never walked home by himself again.

Bo was fifteen when Luke enlisted in the Marines. He put on a strong face in front of Daisy and Uncle Jesse, but he crawled into Luke’s bed every night from the time Luke enlisted to the night before he left. “You awake, Luke?” Bo whispered on the last night.

“Yeah, I’m awake,” Luke whispered back. They’d been crammed together on the twin sized mattress for over an hour, but he couldn’t stop thinking about what he was going to do tomorrow.

“Do you remember how when I was real little and you’d go spend the night at Cooter’s and I’d always try to sneak out and come with you?” Bo said. Luke smiled a little and nodded.

“After about the third or fourth time, you said you wanted to come with me right when I was about to leave, and Uncle Jesse went to pick you up so I could get out the door without you crying and clinging to me. But I held your hand,” Luke grabbed his cousin’s hand once again, “and said, “Don’t worry, Uncle Jesse. I’ve got him.””

Bo was smiling softly too now. “And then Cooter dropped a box of magazines on my head, and neither of us were allowed to spend the night with him for two months,” the fifteen year old said. Luke did his best to laugh quietly so they wouldn’t wake Daisy or Uncle Jesse.

“I guess we haven’t really been apart more than a night or two since then,” Luke said as he examined a sagging corner of the ceiling.

“Yeah,” Bo agreed. “I… I don’t know what I’m gonna do with you gone.”

“You’ll be okay,” Luke promised, gripping his hand tighter and rubbing circles across Bo’s knuckles with his thumb. “You’re gonna focus on school and helping Uncle Jesse. I won’t be around, so you’re really gonna have to step up.”

“I know,” Bo said. “I can do it. I’m just gonna miss you.”

“I’ll miss you too,” Luke said. “But you understand why I have to do this, right?”

“Yeah,” Bo said with a nod. Luke could feel his cousin trembling where he was pressed against his chest. “But it’s not going to make me miss you any less. Just promise that you’ll come home.”

“I promise.”

A year and a half later, Luke came home to a seventeen year old baby cousin who was taller than he was and capable of doing two men’s work on the farm while still balancing school. Despite his newly gained height and maturity (well, the closest thing to maturity Bo could be expected to have), he was the same cuddly blond kid Luke had left behind. The only problem was that Luke wasn’t the same as he’d been when he left.

Bo did his best to be understanding, but he couldn’t always keep the hurt look off of his dumb little sincere, friendly face when Luke shied away from him. The twenty-one year old felt like a jackass for it, but something in him wouldn’t let himself relax the way he used to be able to. He’d seen too many sweet kids die, and he was constantly afraid that he would be the one to corrupt the innocence that Bo had managed to retain.

Once upon a time, Bo was a three year old dependent on Luke and Uncle Jesse to comfort him and entertain him and keep a roof over his head and food in his belly. Now he could keep himself fed and keep his grades up and do all his chores on his own, and Luke couldn’t even be affectionate any more.

Then one day Bo didn’t come home from school at his usual time. At first, Luke didn’t really notice, and then he figured Bo was just out with some of his friends. He had no shortage of those. But time kept passing with no sign of Bo until it was nearly suppertime and the youngest Duke was yet to arrive. Luke felt fifteen all over again. Uncle Jesse did his best to reassure his oldest that Bo was probably fine, but Luke paced the living room regardless. Jesse promised that they’d start looking for him if he hadn’t come back by the time they were done eating.

Luke leapt up from the kitchen table without bothering to excuse himself when he saw headlights coming up the driveway. He flung open the screen door and stormed down porch steeps to see Cooter helping Bo out of his truck. Bo’s left leg was in a cast from thigh to foot.

“Where the hell have you two been and what the hell happened to your dang leg?” Luke spat.

“Tri-County,” Bo said sheepishly as Uncle Jesse appeared on the porch. “I… uh…”

“It was my fault,” Cooter interrupted. “You see, I was supposed to be watching my younger cousin Dennis for a little while—he and my aunt Delilah are in town—but I just got distracted for a second and Dennis climbed up on the roof of the shop and got too scared to come down. I couldn’t get up there, but Bo volunteered and-”

“And fell off of the dang roof?” Luke said. Bo was leaning on his crutches, blushing, and nodded.

“Not exactly,” Cooter said, glowering at Bo for incriminating himself. “He was sort of… pushed.” The mechanic sighed and ran his hand through his hair. “Dennis is an awful kid.”

Uncle Jesse let out a chuckle and gestured for Bo to come on up the porch. “Thanks for bringing him home, Cooter,” he said as he held the door open for his youngest. “Tell Delilah they grow out of that stage.”

Cooter said his goodbyes, got back into his truck, and left. As Luke went back into the house, he could hear Daisy say, “Oh, sugar!” before Uncle Jesse relayed the story. “Always got to be the hero, huh?” she said to her youngest cousin. Bo just shrugged, and she ran a hand through his hair.

“It’s just a thought, but did it occur to either of you two knuckleheads that you could have called instead of just letting us sit around and worry?” Luke said angrily.

“Well, I guess I was a little out of it,” Bo shot back. “Snapping your femur in half tends to do that. Besides, I didn’t realize I needed your permission to run out of change, Luke.”

“You coulda been dead in a ditch for all we knew,” Luke said.

“You keep saying “we,” but you’re the only one yelling at me for getting pushed off a roof!” Bo said, raising his voice to match his cousin. Luke hadn’t even realized he was yelling until Bo met him. “I get it that you don’t like me a lot right now, but I can’t help it that stuff happens sometimes. You didn’t get mad at me for nearly drowning when I fell into the pond.”

“Because you were a dang kid then, and I was too afraid you were dead to yell at you!” Luke said. “And I never said I didn’t like you or I was mad at you.”

“Boys,” Uncle Jesse broke in, pausing long enough for them both to calm down a little. “Bo, you know your cousin loves you and he’s just yelling at you because you made him worry. Luke, you’ve got to calm down. Bo didn’t set out to worry you to death. He was trying to help Cooter out, and it went south. That happens in life sometimes. Now you boys both need to turn in early and deal with it with cool heads in the morning.”

“Yes, sir,” Bo mumbled. Luke didn’t say anything and went to take a shower before he headed to bed.

“I was fourteen,” Bo said quietly a few minutes after they’d turned off the lights. “When I fell into the pond. You said I was a kid, but that was only three years ago.”

“Go to sleep, Bo,” Luke sighed, rolling over. Bo was quiet for just long enough for Luke to hope he’d actually fallen asleep before he said something else.

“My leg hurts.”

“That’s because it’s broken, Bo.”

Luke could hear his cousin huff from across the room. With a sigh, Luke clamored out of bed and walked out of the room. A few minutes later, he returned with Tylenol and a glass of water. “Won’t do much, but it might take the edge off,” he said as he offered the pills to Bo.

“Thanks,” the blond said after swallowing. Luke nodded and flipped the lights back off.

“Scoot over,” he said. Bo looked a little confused, but he scrunched as close to the wall as he could without questioning it. Luke crawled into bed next to his cousin and wrapped an arm around him.

“We ain’t shared a bed since you left,” Bo commented quietly.

“And we won’t again if you make it weird,” Luke threatened, but he didn’t really sound angry like he had been earlier. Bo smiled a little. “Now shush and get some sleep.”

The next morning, Bo woke up to see that Luke was already awake but still in his bed. “I’m glad you’re back, Luke,” he said with a grin. Luke had been home for nearly a month, but Bo made that statement about every other day.

“Me too, kid,” Luke said. “Listen, I’ll try not to yell at you like that, but I don’t want you scaring me like that again.”

“Well, I’ll try not to break my leg again,” Bo laughed. “Can you pass me my crutches? I’ve got to get ready now or else I’ll be late for school.”

Luke laughed. “It’s a Saturday, turnip-head,” he said. “You’re luck about that. You’ve got the weekend to figure out your bathing situation. That cast can’t get wet, and you’re gonna be stuck in it for at least a couple weeks.”

“You’re laughing now, but who do you think is gonna be the one helping me with everything,” Bo said.

Bo’s assessment ended up being accurate. Luke had to help him with everything from getting clean to getting to school in the mornings. He couldn’t do most of his chores either, so Luke picked up the slack while Bo helped Daisy out with stuff like folding laundry. By the time the youngest Duke got his cast off, he and Luke were back to being almost as affectionate as they’d been before Luke left.

When they got arrested for running shine when Bo was nineteen and Luke was twenty-three, they held hands in the jail cell and managed to fit two grown men into a bed hardly fit for one. They were both scared out of their wits, and they both knew it. Jesse managed to cut a deal, and Luke gave his cousin a piggy back ride out of the jail, laughing the whole way.

Everyone in town was accustomed to the Duke boys’ ways, and they hardly even noticed. Occasionally a girl would complain that Luke spent more time chasing after his baby cousin than her or that he held Bo’s hand more than anyone else’s, but those relationships usually ended pretty quick. He’d been holding hands with Bo longer than he’d been holding hands with girls, and he didn’t see any reason to change that.


End file.
